(Semantics) kroeger's book ch 9

Pragmatic Inference
After Grice
____________________________________________________________________________________
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Semantics – LANE 621
Pragmatic Inference After Grice
– Ch9
From Kroeger’s (2019). Analyzing meaning. – Ch9
King Abdulaziz University
Department of European
Languages & Literature

Outline
9.4 Implicatures and the semantics/pragmatics
boundary
9.4.1 Why numeral words are special
9.5 Conclusion

9.4 Implicatures and the semantics/
pragmatics boundary

(Kroeger, 2019)
9.4 Implicatures and the semantics/pragmatics boundary
• Semantic meaning:
is the meaning that is associated with the words themselves,
independent of context.
• Pragmatic meaning:
is the meaning which arises from the context of the utterance.

(Kroeger, 2019)
Truth conditions of a sentence
depend only on the
“semantic content” or sentence meaning,
and not on
pragmatic meaning
“Truth conditional meaning” “sentence meaning”

(Kroeger, 2019)
The conventional implicatures of words like but and therefore
conventional meaning
conventional meaning is not always truth-conditional

(Kroeger, 2019)
Generalized conversational implicatures
the sequential ‘and then’ use of and
is not due to lexical ambiguity (polysemy),
but must be a pragmatic inference.
does affect
the truth conditions of
the sentence

(Kroeger, 2019)
Examples like
a. If the old king has died of a heart attack and a republic has been
declared, then Tom will be quite content.
b. If a republic has been declared and the old king has died of a heart
attack, then Tom will be quite content.

(Kroeger, 2019)
‘If he had three beers and drove home, he broke the law;
but if he drove home and had three beers, he did not break the law’.

(Kroeger, 2019)
• Proponents of the Relevance Theory argue that
the sequential ‘and then’ use of and is an explicature.
• A similar analysis is proposed for most if not all of the
inferences that Grice and the “neo-Griceans” have identified as
generalized conversational implicatures: within Relevance Theory
they are generally treated as explicatures.

(Kroeger, 2019)
Picasso’s famous mural “Guernica”

(Kroeger, 2019)
Mr. Dumas: “This changes everything”
“You of course have the originals?”
Mr. Quintanilla: “Not all of them”
not none
(that is, ‘I have some of them’)
Generalized conversational implicatures

(Kroeger, 2019)
Generalized conversational implicatures can be used
to communicate false information, even when the
literal meaning of the sentence is true.

(Kroeger, 2019)
Scalar implicatures
cardinal numbers
Horn (2004) uses the following examples to bring out
this difference

(Kroeger, 2019)
Scalar implicatures
(1)
A: Did many of the guests leave?
B1: ?No, all of them.
B2: Yes, (in fact) all of them.
On the scale:
< none, some, many, all >
stronger
(more informative)
entails ‘(at least) many’
and implicates ‘not all’

(Kroeger, 2019)
Scalar implicatures
(2)
A: Do you have two children?
B1: No, three.
B2: ?Yes, (in fact) three.
entails ‘(at least) two’
and implicates ‘not more than’
Numerals like two allow two
distinct readings:
‘at least 2’ vs ‘exactly 2’
neither of these is derived as
an implicature from the other.

entails ‘(at least) two’
implicates ‘not more than’
(Kroeger, 2019)
Scalar implicatures
(3)
a. Neither of us has three kids —
she has two and I have four.
b. # Neither of us liked the movie —
she adored it and I hated it.
‘exactly three’
on the scale
<hate, dislike, neutral, like, love/adore>

(Kroeger, 2019)
Horn (1992) notes several other properties which set
numerals apart from other scalar terms, and which
demonstrate the two distinct readings for numerals:

(Kroeger, 2019)
Property 1
Mathematical statements
do not allow “at least” readings,
2 + 2 + 3
(should be true under “at least 3”
reading)
Also, round numbers are more
likely to allow “at least” readings
than very precise numbers
I have $200 in my bank account, if
not more.
I have $201.37 in my bank account,
#if not more.

(Kroeger, 2019)
Property 2
Numerical scales are potentially reversible depending on the context
a. You can survive on 2000 calories per day (or more).
b. You can lose weight on 2000 calories per day (or less).

(Kroeger, 2019)
Property 3
The “at least” interpretation is only possible with the distributive
reading of numerals, not the collective reading
a. Four salesmen have called me today, if not more.
b. Four students carried this sofa upstairs for me, #if not more.

(Kroeger, 2019)
Property 4
The “at least” interpretation is disfavored when a numeral is
the focus of a question
Q: Do you have two children?
A1: No, three.
A2: ?Yes, in fact three.

(Kroeger, 2019)
9.5 Conclusion
• The boundary between semantics and pragmatics is not tenable.
• Pragmatic inferences do contribute to truth-conditional content.
• Truth-conditional content is almost the same thing as conventional meaning.
• (At least) generalized conversational implicatures affect truth-conditions
• Other types of pragmatic inferences, which we refer to as explicatures,
are needed in order to determine the truth value of a sentence.

References
Kroeger, P. (2019). Analyzing meaning. Berlin: Language Science Press.

(Semantics) kroeger's book ch 9

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(Semantics) kroeger's book ch 9